Nutrition and cancer Flashcards
What is the leading cause of death in developed countries?
cancer
What is the main risk factor for cancer?
Age Other big factors include environmental factors, including diet
Nutritional factors may contribute to about __% of tumors
Nutritional factors may contribute to about 30% of tumors
What is cancer?
uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body
characteristics of cancerous cells
– Escape normal growth signals
– Can replicate indefinitely, can form tumors
– Can avoid programmed cell death (apoptosis)
– Can alter energy metabolism
– Can avoid immune surveillance
– Can invade other tissues (metastasis)
– Can develop a blood supply (angiogenesis)
Synonyms of carcinoma
malignant tumors, neoplasms, carcinoma
What are benign tumors?
not cancerous, do not invade and metastasize
What is the first stage of cancer formation?
the process starts with alteration of the gene
DNA is altered
can be from virus, radiation, chemicals
this leads to initiation cell with damaged DNA
Do cancers develop 100% of the time when cell’s DNA is altered/intiation cell is created?
we all have some initiated cells, but we also have defences against replication of such cells
defences can be deactivated and cells will differentiate
What are the changes that occur, leading to development of intiatied cell?
- Activation of protooncogenes
- Inactivation of tunour-suppressor genes
- Inactivation of genoic stability genese
- Defects in growth control
- Defects in terminal differentiation
- Resistance to cytotoxicity
- Defects in programmed cell death
What are the 3 steps of cancer development?
- Initiation
- Promotion
- Progression
What are the factors that can affects the way genotype is expressed in the phenotype?
Penetrance
Epigenetics
Define mutation
What are the possible sources?
structural change in the base pair sequence of DNA
Sources:
– Inherited: eg. BRCA1 gene ↑ risk of breast and ovarian cancer
– Due to exogenous factors e.g. radiation, chemicala, viruses
What is penetrance
Penetrance in genetics is the proportion of individuals carrying a particular variant (or allele) of a gene (the genotype) that also express an associated trait (the phenotype).
What role can SNPs play in cancer?
Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP): may affect the response to exposures
What is the most common type of polymorphisms?
SNPs
Polymorphisms vs mutations
Polymorphisms are weaker but more common than mutations
What do Epigenetic changes affect?
affect gene structure, function and expression
What are the common types of epigenetic changes?
– DNA methylation (hypermethylation of the promotor region of tumor suppressor genes → silencing)
– Acetylation of the histones → affects chromatin folding
Nutritional genomics and proteomics =
interactions between diet and genes and their products
diet inclued bioactive components such as __ but also __
diet inclued bioactive components such as nutirents but also non-nutrients
What is the largest effect on genes of a diet?
the largest effect being on epigenetics and translation to mRNA and protein
as well as post-translation impact that affect structure and function of protein
How can bioactive food components affect genes?
How can food increase and decrease oxidative damage to DNA?
– Increased by carcinogens found in foods, polyunsaturated fatty acids, iron
– Decreased by antioxidant nutrients (Vit C & E ) or cofactors in antioxidant enzymes (selenium, copper)
Folate and DNA link
Direct role of folate in DNA synthesis, repair and methylation
Aspects of the cell cycle that can be affected by bioactive food components
Possible causes of cancer
diet and obesity combined-> 1/3 of effects
diet-> 10-20%
• It is estimated that nearly 1 in _ Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.
• It is estimated that nearly 1 in 2 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.
How has the number of cancer cases diagnosed each year has been changing?
The number of cancer cases diagnosed each year has been increasing because of the growing and aging population. When the effect of age and population size are removed, the risk of cancer has been decreasing.
Most common types of cancers in males and females
Males: prostate, lungs, colorectal
Females: breast, lungs, colorectal
Is inicidence/mortality higher in males or females
both are higher in males
What is the deadliest type of cancer? Why?
lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in both sexes
it is because this type is typically diagnosed late
no specific treatment
Cancer ourcomes and incidence in relation to age
Older people are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer and are more likely to die